In which incoming Iceman writer Sina Grace joins us to talk about the coolest X-Man; Adult Bobby Drake gets the spotlight; no one looks too closely at the jokester; the mutant metaphor works both globally and personally; and we are all a little horrified by how long ago Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run happened.

In which writers Dennis Hopeless and Charles Soule join us for a live episode at Emerald City Comic Con, Age of X is the world’s worst morale boost; Charles and Dennis X-Plain the Marvel Universe; we still can’t get Hieronymus Bosch’s X-Men out of our heads; and apparently somehow we’ve recorded and posted 150 of these things.

In which Elisabeth plans for her reign as Omniversal Majestrix; Hulks and moons are two great tastes that go great together; Nightcrawler takes the lead; Alastair gets a new gadget; it’s just not a cosmic event without Alan Davis; Mastermind is still the absolute worst; Excalibur fixes problems by playing dress-up; Moira MacTaggert desperately needs to hire some staff; and Jamie Braddock is legitimately terrifying.

In which Jay may or may not have sold their voice to a sea witch; Gambit and Deadpool are somewhat lackadaisical superheroes; everything Fat Cobra does is amazing; Miles is a prepared gentleman; Gambit is there to look pretty and throw something; and there is now a Ben Acker vocaloid hovering around the studio.

X-PLAINED:

Acker & Blacker

Thrilling Adventure Hour

X-Men #214, but not the real one

Deadpool v. Gambit

As-needed approach to continuity

The ontology of Deadpool

The time the Absorbing Man turned into cocaine

Wolverine Season One

What makes Gambit creepy

The roadtrip miniseries you didn’t know you needed

A theoretical poker game and its theoretical outcome

NEXT EPISODE: Atlantis Attacks!

There is no visual companion to this episode! Go read Deadpool v. Gambit! It’s great!

In which Elisabeth hacks the Matrix; Magneto is the worst at small talk; Hela overreaches; parents just don’t understand human speech; everything is better with super-rings; Selene has a Xena moment; almost anything can be solved with a kiss; and even if you transform Doug Ramsey into a giant red murder monster, he’ll still be a huge nerd.

X-PLAINED:

The S-Men

New Mutants Forever #1-5

Magma’s revised family tree

Updating the New Mutants

The delicate balance of the Forever line

The web

Idiom confusion

A flawed cultural analogy

Tiberius the Generic

Several profoundly dubious costumes

Family resemblance

Skull v. Skull

The dearth of canonically asexual X-characters

NEXT EPISODE: Different Nazis

Miles here – in one of the questions for this episode, I conflated asexuality and aromanticness. Those are totally two different things. Apologies – I’m still learning!